A major copyright lawsuit in the Southern District of New York names Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, and author Scott Turow as plaintiffs. They accuse Google of wilful copyright infringement, alleging the tech giant unlawfully used copyrighted materials to train its Gemini AI models.
The publishers contend that Google illegally copied and used copyrighted books and texts from restricted, scope-limited programs, including Google Books, Google Play, and Google Scholar, to train early Gemini models. The rightsholders are seeking statutory damages, permanent injunctions to halt further infringement, and an order compelling Google to destroy all unauthorized copies of their works.
Among the highlights in the new lawsuit are that Google executives knew publishers would see some of its plans to copy books as illegal. Despite facing huge potential monetary damages, a Google document notes the company faced $10 billion to 100 billion in potential fines, but it went ahead and made copies anyway.
The complaint also states that Google employees tend to favor using copyrighted works created by esteemed authors for training their language models. They appreciate these works for their “well-curated facts, well-organized analyses, and engaging fictional narratives—most importantly, for their ‘good writing’ that would typically meet an editor’s approval.”
via Publishers Weekly and via AAP.
Michael Kozlowski has written about audiobooks, e-books and e-readers for the past eighteen years. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Publishers file massive lawsuit against Google Gemini Training – Good e-Reader
